Officials are exploring the idea of basing the mast either in territory under the control of Iraqi Kurds - out of bounds to Saddam since the end of the Gulf War - or in Iran, long hostile to the Iraqi regime.

"We are open to the concept of broadcasting from inside Iran or from Kurdish controlled areas of Iraq," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.

He said the administration had been in talks with the INC on an opposition transmitter "for some time".

Anti-Saddam broadcasts

The station could be on the air within 45 days, broadcasting news and commentary on human rights abuses in Iraq and on the "plight of the Iraqi people," INC leader Ahead Chalabi told the Associated Press news agency.

Iraqi Kurds have been persecuted by Saddam

Washington was likely to fund the project at a cost of $178,000 a day, said Mr Chalabi.

The INC leader said the group prefers to erect the mast about 160 kilometres (100 miles) northeast of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, on a 1,500 metre (5,000 foot) mountain, which straddles both Iraq and Iran.

Washington would have to request permission from either Iran or the Kurds to erect the transmitter.

The area within Iraq is controlled by the Kurdistan Socialist Party, which supports the plan, but it has met some resistance from two other local parties - the Kurdish Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.

Mr Chalabi said the groups are wary of backing the plan without assurances of US protection.